Occupation

Powers/Skills

Hobby

Stealing weapons, keeping in touch with Madoka, setting track records, having a drink while watching people pass by (Rebellion), torturing Incubators (Rebellion).

Goals

Protect Madoka.

Foil Kyuubey's plans of convincing Madoka to become a Puella Magi.

(Rebellion) Restructure the universe to her design.

(Rebellion) Suppress Madoka's powers and enslave the incubators.

Type of Villain

Anti-Villainess, Magician

“

A person becomes naïve if they're too kind. Careless if they're too bold. And no matter how hard you try to protect others, there's no gratitude. Those who can't comprehend such things aren't fit to be Magical Girls.

„

~ Homura Akemi

Homura Akemi is a Magical Girl and the deuteragonist of the anime series Puella Magi Madoka Magica. She is also the main protagonist of the movie Rebellion, becoming the main antagonist during the climax of the movie.

She is voiced by Chiwa Saito in the Japanese version and Christina Valenzuela in the English version.

Contents

Appearance

Homura is a young girl of about 13 years of age (it was said that Homura looped the same month nearly 100 times which would give her an age of 21), though you couldn't tell that by her cold, emotionless expression. She has long black hair and violet eyes. She is typically seen wearing either a school uniform of the same design as that of the other girls, or her magical girl outfit. The latter is significantly less ornate and colorful than the outfits of most magical girls. When in magical girl mode, she carries a small ornate round shield. When she makes use of her power, clockwork gears can be seen inside.

Personality

Homura's personality towards almost everybody can be described as cold and blunt. Only one person is able to make her display any other kind of emotions, that being Madoka. She is absolutely indifferent towards everybody else, but her devotion towards Madoka is incredible - for her sake, Homura is ready to do absolutely anything. While it is not explicitely stated this devotion stems from a love interest, it is at least rather heavily hinted at. At the same time, Homura does not seem to be actively looking for any reciprocation of her feelings on Madoka's part, being content with a one-sided relationship just as long as Madoka is safe. It is no exaggeration to say that Homura exists purely for the sake of Madoka.

Role in Puella Magi Madoka Magica series

Originally, Homura Akemi appears to be an antagonistic figure in the anime whose goal is to prevent Madoka Kaname from becoming a Magical Girl. She appears cold and emotionless and attempts to murder Kyubey before he can contact Madoka. She is considered to be a "rogue" Magical Girl by Kyubey and Mami Tomoe, and fits the common stereotype of the Dark Magical Girl. However, as the anime goes on, her true motivations become clear.

Homura Akemi originally met Madoka in a different timeline. In there she suffered from a heart disease. Feeling depressed and worthless, she stumbled into a Witch's barrier, but is saved by Madoka and Mami. They became friends, but when the city is attacked by Walpurgis Night, Madoka was killed. Broken over her death, Homura accepted Kyubey's proposal to become a Puella Magi, her wish being "I want to redo my meeting with Kaname-san. Instead of being protected by her, I want to protect her!"

Time was reversed and Homura returned back to the day when she first met Madoka, but this time with Magical Girl powers. This process would repeat almost 100 times - every time Homura failed to save Madoka from death, she would turn back time and return to the same day, over and over again. But unwittingly, Homura was also boosting Madoka's potential as a Magical Girl by creating myriads of timelines all centered around her.

Over the next timelines Homura mastered her powers, but also found out a terrible secret: Magical Girls are doomed to become Witches. She eventually became obsessed with preventing Madoka from forming a contract with Kyubey, no matter the cost. But every single time, Madoka would meet an untimely end or become a Magical Girl, since no matter how hard she tried Homura was never a match for the attack of the powerful Walpurgis Night.

This trend continued until Madoka made her wish to erase every witch with her own hands, becoming a Goddess and vanishing from the physical plane of existance. This created a whole new world where Magical Girls would pass on peacefully instead of becoming Witches upon reaching their despair threshold. Instead of fighting Witches, Magical Girls fought Wraiths, physical embodiments of humanity's negative emotions.

Role in Puella Magi Madoka Magica Movie: The Rebellion Story

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING SECTION CONTAINS HEAVY SPOILERS FOR THE PUELLA MAGI MADOKA MAGICA MOVIE. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!

This movie is centered on Homura's efforts as she investigated a seemingly perfect Mitakihara City, wherein all five major Magical Girls (Madoka, Homura, Sayaka, Kyouko and Mami) were fighting as a team to (non-violently) defeat new entities known as Nightmares. Homura eventually bame suspicious of the reality of this world, and figured out it is actually a Witch's barrier. It took her a little longer to figure out that the Witch in question is actually herself. She confronted Kyubey, who revealed the truth to her.

She was actually being experimented upon by the Incubators. After Madoka made her wish, Kyubey became interested in restoring the Witch System, which he believed to be more effective for the production of energy than slaying the Wraiths that replaced the Witches. In order to observe and possibly subvert and control Madoka, the Incubators devised an Inhibition Field wherein they placed a dying Homura. Normally, in such a situation Madoka would have spirited away the girl and erased her despair, but the Inhibition Field made such an intervention impossible. Homura began her transformation into a Witch, but the Field kept it under control. Kyubey hoped that Madoka would personally come to the rescue of the suffering girl, allowing the Incubators to observe her and learn how to deal with her. The ideal Mitakihara was actually a barrier-like world Homura had subconsciously created inside her Soul Gem. It accidentally absorbed Mami Tomoe and Kyouko Sakura, while Madoka and her subordinates Sayaka Miki and Nagisa Momoe entered it willingly (though unknown to Kyubey, Madoka entrusted her memories of being a goddess to Sayaka and Nagisa, in order to fool Kyubey and prevent him from manipulating her).

Upon learning of Kyubey's plan, Homura turned into Homulilly, her Witch form (though without actually shattering her Soul Gem and transforming it into a Grief Seed). Her main goal as a Witch was to kill herself so that Madoka would not have to reveal the secrets of her power to Kyubey. However, the Magical Girls inside the gem managed to purify the Witch, also destroying the Inhibition Field and freeing Homura. It was finally time for Goddess Madoka to give Homura the peaceful rest she deserved... but nobody could have guessed what impact the prior events would have had on Homura's mind.

When Madoka attempted to whisk Homura away, instead Homura seized her hand and began draining her power. A new kind of magic (allegedly the power of Love, as opposed to Despair) tainted Homura's Soul Gem, allowing her to transform herself into an entity as powerful as, if not more powerful than Goddess Madoka. She described herself as a demon, or the Devil to Madoka's God.

Homura somehow separates the "human" aspect of Madoka from the "Goddess" aspect and creates a Barrier-like world where all of the girls are alive and living out their ideal lives. She enslaves the Incubators, tortures Kyubey, erases everyone's memories and tells Madoka that if she insists on sacrificing herself for everyone's sake, then she too will someday become Homura's enemy.

Powers and Abilities

As she made her deal with Kyubey to go back in time, Homura Akemi gained control over time itself. She can use her shield to block incoming attacks, but its primary purpose is to allow her to stop time at will. She can keep up the time stop indefinitely, but it slowly drains her magic, thus bringing her closer to despair every second. She can reset the timeline at will to any point in time, but only if at least one month has passed since her last reset. She was never seen resetting it to any point other than waking up the day she met Madoka, as for her task (stopping Madoka from becoming a Magical Girl) this is the farthest back she needs to be. In addition, Homura must activate the shield manually, so if she is unable to do so her timestop becomes unusable. She is also immortal like all the other magical girls as long as her Soul Gem is intact.

The shield also has some sort of hyperspace pocket inside of it, which Homura uses to store weapons. Since neither her power nor her weapon can inflict damage by themselves, she relies on non-magical weaponry to inflict damage. This includes handguns, automatic guns, rocket launchers, mines and much more. Thanks to her ability to stop time indefinitely, she can easily steal weaponry from various sources, including military bases.

She also appears to be able to have some other miscellaneous powers, those include telekinetic control over objects through physical contact (for instance, driving a truck without sitting inside the cabin) and the ability to heal severe illnesses (at least on herself). She also seem to possesses super speed since she was able to dodge nearly 1000 of bullets effortlessly while she was fighting Mami and the ability to jump extremely long distances (it nearly looks like flying).

Homura is also the strongest of the magical girls as long as no one discovers the nature of her power.

As Akuma Homura/Homucifer, she displays extremely vast and ill-defined powers, apparently on the level of Goddess Madoka. She is able to create a Barrier possibly spanning the whole universe, override Goddess Madoka's power and effortlessly wipe out the universe, rewrite it and erase the minds of anyone inside the world she created. She also seems to have somehow managed to traumatize even an emotionless alien being like Kyubey. She also has the ability to keep the goddess Madoka trapped on Earth with no connection to her true self.

Trivia

The first character for Akemi (暁) means "daybreak", while the second one (美) means beauty which is a famous letter in girl's name.

When her full name is written vertically in hiragana (あけみほむら) and covering the left half at a certain angle, it could be read as カナメまどか which is Kaname written in katakana and Madoka written in hiragana.

Her last name can also be used as a first name.

In an early production sketch, her surname was given as (暁海) "daybreak sea" instead of (暁美). Both are read as Akemi.

Her first name is written in hiragana, which has no special meaning. However, when written in kanji, it can mean:

flame, blaze (炎 or 焔).

heart on fire (心火).

mass of flame (炎叢).

village protector (保村).

Though only 焔, 炎, and 心火 are actually Japanese given names. The name 'Homura' can also be written the following ways as a given name:

stride approaching happiness (歩向楽).

head/point of the large village (穂邑).

(*Fun fact: The name "炎子" or Homurako can also be read as "Moeko").

The official Chinese translation uses (焔) "flame, blaze" as the kanji for her first name. However, no official kanji of her name exists in the original Japanese version.

Homura's height range, according to the Production Note, is 155–158 cm.

Homura is frequently referred to as "Homerun-chan" amongst Western fans, due to the similarity of the two names in Japanese, however she is frequently referred as "Homuhomu" (ほむほむ) within Japanese community. Homuhomu likely originated from the runes in Episode 3, one of which translates to "Homuhomu". "Homuhomu" can also be used as a verb as "do Homuhomu" (ほむほむする) which means to caress, console or take care of. The action of "do Homuhomu" is not defined exactly. Originally started by the fan community it has been embraced and adopted by the industry to become part of the official language and usage.

Homura is sometimes also jokingly refered to as "Homurika" due to shared similarity of circumstances (having to go through many timelines to prevent a tragedy) with Rika Furude (Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni).

In the Puella Magi Madoka Magica Official Guidebook "You Are Not Alone" Hanokage jokingly describes Homura as "Hommando" in her After-Recording Report comic, because of the excessive vast arsenal of weaponry she unleashes in Episode 11. Apparently the smörgåsbord of weaponry was added later, they were not originally depicted in the early stages of the screenplay. This nickname caught on with the fandom.

Homura from the previous timelines (clumsy and with braids) is often referred to as "Moemura" amongst Western fans, due to her cuteness.

The official name of her Ultimate form is Akuma Homura (demon/devil Homura). However, Western fans often refer to her as Homucifer, because of the parallels between her story and the fall of Lucifer from Paradise Lost.

Some folks in 2ch nicknamed Homura's residence Homu-home (ほむホーム Homuhōmu) since Homu is a nickname for Homura, and Hōmu is "home" rendered in the Japanese syllabary. It should be noted that "homu" is more often used for dog houses and similar structures, with the English word "home" expressed using "uchi" (うち, which refers to one's own house or household), "ie" (いえ, which can refer to a physical house or a family lineage), or the honorific "otaku" (お宅, which refers to someone else's house or household).

In Audio commentary for Episode 4, Urobuchi liked Chiwa Saitou for the role because she had a "Dark Beauty" feeling.

In the Audio commentary for Episode 7, Chiwa Saitou explains she tried the role of Kyubey and Kyousuke first, until Gen Urobuchi convinced her to try the role of Homura.

Chiwa Saito explains that she found the character of Homura to be strong but also to be a weak/delicate girl. Aoi Yuuki adds that the Homura character had no other choice but to become strong.

Ryouko Shintani states that would be true for a character that has something or someone important to protect.

In the audio commentary for Episode 11, Chiwa Saito found the confession scene to be touching and emotional, and left her with a huge impression. She confesses that she cried. Aoi Yuuki (Madoka's voice actress) found the same scene to be amazing and stated that it filled her with emotions. She felt that her and Madoka became synchronized during the emotional scene. Aoi Yuuki believes that surely Madoka would have accepted Homura's feelings.

Homura's shield is similar to Time Lord technology. Considering that her power is the manipulation of time, it might be well be an intentional reference.

Apparently there is a rumor on the net that some weapons went "missing" at the JSDF and US military bases in Japan. There is only one official report regarding the missing/stolen weapons. It is not known if the rumors of the stolen missing weapons inspired their appearance in the series. Nor is there any evidence indicating that the perpetrator was a time traveling magical girl.

Homura's appearance in episode 12 (in the new timeline) from the manga is different than her appearance from the anime. In the anime, her clothes and hairstyle remain the same, with Madoka's ribbon as her accessories. However, in the manga, she wears a new dress, changes her hairstyle to two pigtails with the ribbons Madoka gave her.

Some pages from the Puella Magi Production Note refer to Homura's attack on Walpurgisnacht as "Pytha-homu Switch", a reference to the complicated Rube Goldberg machines featured on the Japanese children's show "Pythagorean Switch".

Interestingly, Akuma Homura's actions can be likened to the official profile of Kriemhild Gretchen, Madoka's witch: "She absorbs any life on the planet into her newly created heaven--her barrier." This emphasizes Akuma Homura's nature as the antithesis of Deity Madoka.

Homura is similar to another character by Gen Urobuchi, Kiritsugu Emiya, both being dark characters strongly effected by the loss of a loved one, who use a combination of time manipulation magic and modern military hardware. Additionally, both have black hair, rarely show emotion and are incredibly self-loathing.